My Teeth Have Low Self Esteem: A Photo Essay

When I was seven years old, my very first adult tooth—the right front one—was wrestled from my mouth. My older brother, Dan (see the monster below), who was nine at the time, had grown weary of my antics and slammed a door in my face. All I can remember from the incident is the shards of what felt like fiberglass in my mouth, the tender feeling of the exposed root, and later, a whole lot of ice cream-laced sympathy from my very irate mother.

Days later, I had a brand new synthetic tooth. But this incident was only the first of a lifelong struggle with my smile. As I grew older, my spread-out grin graduated from very adorable to visually assaulting. To better explain what came next, I think a montage of vignettes would do best here: my second grade teacher digging through the trash for my sparkly, blue retainer; headgear on the nightstand; the weird two-sided retainer that didn't allow me to open my mouth in the fourth grade; the rubber bands that created a webbed labyrinth between my molars; Halloween-themed rubber bands; the glorious removal of the braces and the "Afternoon Delight" swagger I rocked immediately following.

Despite all of my trials and tribulations—or maybe as a result of them—my teeth have always been my most-beloved feature. My dad, who passed away in 2011, used to call my slightly oversize chompers my "Hollywood teeth"; occasionally strangers will come up to me just to say that my smile brightened their day.

You know those commercials about how if you're not whitening you're yellowing? Let's say I was a professional yellower in my younger years—a premature coffee addiction coupled with a short-lived affinity for Camel Lights gradually rendered my smile the shade of a lovely summer squash. My first attempt to whiten my teeth happened freshman year of college. I decoupaged my mouth with Crest White Strips, and more than once I fell asleep with the filmy adhesives still affixed to my mouth. The smile got whiter, but that years-old filling stubbornly retained its wan disposition.

The incidents kept coming: In 2012, three months after starting my brand new job at ELLE, I invited all of my new colleagues to a happy hour at a bar near my apartment. Between rounds of tequila shots, someone ordered a platter of the Rusty Knot's famous pretzel dogs. As I sunk my chompers into the doughy encasement, I felt an entire molar suction into the pastry. I panicked. I barely knew these people. I had just lost a tooth inside. of. a. pretzel. dog. I did what any young professional would do: I spit the bite out and threw it across the bar. Then I kept on drinking.

Last summer, the night before my wedding—after three long months of dieting—I caved in the presence of a bowl of Tootsie Roll pops. But unlike that curious owl who wanted to see how many licks it took to get to the chocolatey center, one bite was all it took to shatter my front tooth. The same one I had had since I was seven. And as I turned to my mom, my future husband, and my future brother-in-law, all crowded in the backseat of a Jeep Liberty, well on our way to upstate New York, I once again felt the familiar taste of fiberglass in my mouth. "Is it bad?" I asked. I already knew the answer. Thank God for my brother-in-law, who may or may not have Mob affiliations, because 30 minutes later, a very competent dentist with margarita breath was opening up his office for an after-hours bonding.

Some women obsess over the one eyebrow they can't tweeze, or a slightly chipped manicure, but when I look in the mirror, all I see is my teeth, teeth, teeth. For that reason, last week I jumped at the opportunity to get them whitened at Lavaan, a spa that specializes in whitening. Upon arrival, an attendant escorted me into my own private room with a giant plasma TV screen. And after I explained my checkered past with teeth falling out, crowns, dental work, general freakshowness, the handsome doctor suggested four quick applications of Zoom whitening. And though my gums were pried open with a dental dam the size of an iPhone, a blue light emanating off the shivering enamel, for the time being I felt content.